


don't wanna be dreaming, warm in bed

by indigomist



Series: hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you [2]
Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: And Insomnia, F/F, at least that’s nico’s outlook on life, chase has no clue what to do with a cat, ice cream makes everything better, is molly 11 or 14? you decide, karolina and alex's entire relationship is watching cooking shows together, karolina has anxiety, karolina loves 90s movies, molly's the little sister karolina never had, old lace is mentioned, so does gert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigomist/pseuds/indigomist
Summary: For Karolina, the hostel just wouldn’t be the same without the people in it. It just wouldn’t feel right.or: karolina's version of normal, and it wouldn't be the same without everyone elsesequel to 'hold on to the memories'
Relationships: Karolina Dean & Alex Wilder, Karolina Dean & Chase Stein, Karolina Dean & Gertrude Yorkes, Karolina Dean & Molly Hayes | Molly Hernandez, Karolina Dean/Nico Minoru
Series: hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603723
Comments: 9
Kudos: 72





	don't wanna be dreaming, warm in bed

**Author's Note:**

> title from hayley kiyoko - 'she'
> 
> enjoy!

For Karolina, the hostel just wouldn’t be the same without the people in it. It just wouldn’t feel _right_ without Molly’s enthusiasm for just about anything, or Alex’s weird references that no one except him and occasionally Nico get, or Nico’s ability to find adventure anywhere she looks. And to think, if their parents hadn’t been murderers, she never would have been this close to her friends.

Sure, Karolina’s mom may have been evil, but she taught her well in terms of film history. Thanks to Leslie, Karolina’s seen movies from just about every decade in the last century. She’s always favored the 90’s movies, though.

So when she finds Gert watching a certain piano scene from a certain Tom Hanks movie, she sits down next to her and stays there until the movie’s over. And so begins their own special tradition: movie nights. They make their way through the Tom Hanks movies: _A League of Their Own, Splash, Forrest Gump._ Karolina’s favorite of the ones they watch is _You’ve Got Mail_ ; Gert’s is _Sleepless in Seattle_.

“It drags on so slowly,” Gert tells her when she brings it up. “It’s so obvious that Tom Hanks is the guy from the internet, and it just makes her out to look kind of dumb.”

“But Meg Ryan owns a bookstore and I love that! Besides, isn’t the whole getting together on Valentine’s Day a little too cliche for you?”

“Sure, it’s cliche, but it’s romantic! If Nico asked you go to the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day to confess her love to you while surrounded by all the city lights, would you go?”

“It wouldn’t be realistic. Nico’s scared of heights, and besides, why would we go to the Empire State Building? It’s always crowded. I can fly, we can go to the top of literally any building we want.”

“It’s a movie, Karolina. It’s not supposed to be realistic. It’s also unrealistic that the one guy she keeps running into happens to be the one guy she meets on the internet.”

“Point taken.”

—————

Karolina’s an only child, and she’s always wanted a little sister. But the closest thing she’s ever gotten was Molly, and that’s more than enough for her now that they’re living together. Karolina figures that Molly’s had enough of them treating her like a child instead of one of them, so she takes a quick trip to the store. When Alex and Molly are done with math for the day, she pulls her aside.

“Hey Molls, you got any plans for the day?”

“Not really, I was just going to walk around until I found something to do.”

Karolina holds up her plastic shopping bag. “I bought nail polish. You up for a girl’s day, just me and you?”

“Of course!” Molly beams, and Karolina can’t help smiling at her enthusiasm.

They settle in Molly’s room, sitting on her bed. Karolina paints Molly’s left hand hot pink and her right electric green. When her nails are dry, Molly tells Karolina to close her eyes and hold out her hand.

“I’m scared,” Karolina says.

Molly says nothing in return, giggling mischievously as she polishes the first nail. She takes a bit of time between each nail, and with each pause Karolina grows a little more anxious. She knows Molly isn’t the type of kid to do something like make her nails look bad, or paint her whole hand, but she can’t shake the thought of ‘what if?’ from her mind. She instead focuses on some of the breathing techniques her therapist taught her.

After what feels like forever, Molly blows on her nails and pronounces them done. “You can open your eyes now.”

Karolina does just that, and gasps as she opens her eyes. “They’re beautiful!” Molly had painted her nails all sorts of rainbow colors, and put a coat of glitter on top of the. “I love them, thank you so much!”

“No problem. Hey, thanks for doing this. We should do it again some time!” And with that, Molly skips from the room to go find something else to do.

—————

They can all cook, (except Chase, he’s hopeless), but Karolina and Alex are the only two who actually enjoy it. They have a system when it comes to food: everyone has their day to make dinner.

The thing is, there’s six of them and seven days in a week. So on Sundays the group goes out if they can find the money, and if they can’t it’s up to whoever wants to to make dinner. The task usually falls to Karolina and Alex.

They like to go all out for Sundays, watching cooking shows and then trying to recreate the extravagant dishes. They even make creme brûlée, enlisting Chase’s help to use the Fistigons as a blowtorch.

Sunday’s dinners are always the best ones.

—————

Karolina’s tired of being cooped up inside.

She needs sunlight, and yeah, her skylight’s great, but it’s nothing like the real thing. So one morning at breakfast, when asked about her plans for the day, she announces that she’s going to the park.

“The weather’s fairly nice, and I haven’t gone anywhere in days. Anyone wanna come with?”

“I will!” Chase jumps at the chance, and so after they’re done the two of them head out to Gracegate Park.They’re walking along a trail, laughing about something that had happened way back when, when Karolina stops short.

“Karolina - Whoa!” Chase bumps into her from behind. “What’s going on?” he asks, visibly confused.

“Chase, look,” Karolina breathes, pointing. “Puppies! And kittens!” She drags Chase over to where an animal shelter had set up their adoption event before he can respond.

They cuddle with a couple of them, and Karolina swears she’s dying, and asks Chase if they can get all of them. Chase tells her no, that they can’t bring a pet into the hostel, can’t afford it, and they already have Old Lace. But then a little black kitten with a white moon over his eye gets placed in his arms, and Chase can’t resist.

“Aww, look. He’s making noise. Karolina, is he supposed to make noise? Am I doing something wrong?”

“He’s purring. Cats purr when they’re happy, Chase - have you never held one before?”

“No,” he answers sheepishly.

When they leave the park, they both have a new volunteer job at the shelter, and Chase has the kitten (named Rufus) in his arms, purring happily.

—————

Sleeping isn’t exactly something that comes easy for Karolina anymore. Whenever she tries, she can never fall asleep. Even worse, though, are the nights where she’s stuck in a half asleep, half awake state. One night she’s up, staring off to her side and thinking about how many hours of sleep she’ll get if she falls asleep now, when Nico shifts next to her and turns over, staring up at Karolina.

“Karrie?” Nico’s dark eyes meet Karolina’s clear ones.

“Yeah?”

“I can’t sleep,” Nico whispers.

“Me either.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Karolina leans down, and her lips briefly meet Nico’s.

When they break apart, Nico turns on the light beside her. “Karrie?” she asks again, and she gets that look on her face that Karolina knows from experience she only gets when planning something.

“Yeah?”

“You up for an adventure?” Nico asks, and Karolina is a bit scared, but she’ll do anything for Nico, anything, and she doesn’t hesitate before answering.

“Always. What’re we doing?”

“You’ll see,” Nico says, pulling some clothes on, and Karolina tosses her the keys to the old run-down car that had come with the hostel.

They drive for about twenty minutes before Nico pulls into a parking lot, not exactly doing the best parking job, but hell, it’s midnight, and who cares?

“Dream Cream,” Karolina reads. “Open 24 hours.”

“Ice cream makes everything better,” Nico says. “Right?”

“Right.” Karolina orders strawberry ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, and Nico gets a cone of chocolate vanilla twist soft serve. They sit and eat it right on the curb outside the tiny shop, watching all the people passing by and theorizing about their lives.

“The most interesting people are always the ones out at midnight,” Nico remarks.

The girls finish up and head back to the hostel. When they arrive, they creep through the halls, being careful not to wake anyone else up. They both fall into bed as soon as they can, exhausted from the day’s adventures.

“Nico?” Karolina asks softly, pulling her a little closer.

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

“No problem,” Nico whispers. “After all, ice cream makes everything better, right?”

No answer comes. Nico looks over at a sleeping Karolina.

“Goodnight, Karrie.”

—————

So when Karolina’s sitting at the table one morning for breakfast, exhausted because she had stayed up late the night before dancing with Nico, weighing in on all the conversations going on at once, she takes a second to look around. Chase and Alex are having a heated debate about some kind of new robot coming out soon, Gert and Molly are talking about how well Rufus and Old Lace get along, and Nico is just sitting staring into her cereal, appearing completely lost in thought.

And Karolina is struck by just how perfect this moment is, and how content she feels. And she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> honestly I don't even know what to say. here’s part two! it's almost double the length of part one, so after finishing it, I'm just completely zoned out from all reality. also I probably need to go to sleep
> 
> thank you so much for reading!


End file.
